You might think that there's not much else that Katie Hopkins would be able to shock people with.

But it seems she has excelled herself this time.

This week she unleashes her aptly named autobiography Rude and if there’s one thing you can guarantee it’s that it will certainly cause lots of controversy.

The handbag-sized book contains her disasters, her biggest disappointments and the time she had to ring her super sensible boss to say she was on the front pages of the tabloids having sex in a field, reports Devon Live.

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From being kicked out of the Army for being epileptic, to her first husband leaving her in the maternity ward for the big-boobed secretary, and from cheating death to the reality behind Celebrity Big Brother, Katie is brutally honest about them all.

But the 42-year-old is uncharacteristically sheepish rather than confident about the impact her revealing book might have and admits the prospect of running away and hiding is suddenly very appealing.

But even more incredible than Katie revealing her vulnerable side over a coffee with DevonLive at Exeter’s Cosy Club is that even her husband and mum have no idea what is in the book which comes out today, November 7.

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“When it comes out I want to leave the country for a long period of time until everyone has stopped talking about it. I’ve not written a book before and I wrote it as if it was just me and the computer, and all the things that I thought and my secrets.

“I’d describe it as a hand book to life for women or an over share too far! It is essentially about my disasters and sexual exploits that have gone horrifically wrong. I’m genuinely quite scared because everyone thinks they know me as being a gobby cow, but this is me, the family me and the Exeter me.”

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The first chapter is entitled I’m Not a Twat which explains how she has to make a point of meeting with new people to show she is not the ‘twat’ the public perceive her to be.

And it’s true, she’s not. Katie is actually very warm and welcoming and does her upmost to put you at ease, and what makes her more likeable than hateable is her wicked sense of humour.

Katie, who first found celebrity fame in 2006 after being allowed to take unpaid leave from her job from the Met Office as part of her probationary period of employment to take part in reality TV show The Apprentice, said: “If I get booked to do something I will meet with the organiser for a coffee. That’s a ‘I’m not a twat’ meeting and at the end of it they say, ‘you are nothing what I thought you were like’. That’s kind of the purpose.

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Controversial broadcaster Katie Hopkins grew up in Bideford in North Devon

“Most people in life don’t have to do that as they’ve probably got a reputation for being nice.”

It therefore seems almost a bit ironic that Katie has her very own ‘Mr Nice’ - her husband Mark, a graphic designer who also does lots to manage Katie’s workload and helps looks after their three children aged 13, 12 and eight.

She said: “People assume I’m married to someone arrogant but he’s called ‘lovely Mark’ which is really annoying.

“Mark and I are opposites and I’m really happy we have different opinions. He is a Labour supporter, I’m not. He is known as being nice to everyone and I’m not, but it works, goodness knows how.”

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But it isn’t just hate mail Katie receives; She also has her fair share of fans who applaud her for saying what they wish they could.

Katie said: ““My supporters are surprisingly 17 to 24-year-olds because younger people are impacted by not being able to think differently to their mates.

“I don’t say that I speak for anyone but people thank me for what I do and for articulating something they can’t say as they can’t take the s*** I take.

“I have been interviewed under caution by the special enquiry team of the homicide and major crime command (over allegations of inciting racial) and social services have been called about my children twice.

“People will try and get you in any way they can, and use litigation to silence you. It makes my shoulders go back and chin up. There are moments when I wonder what I’m doing and the purpose, but then I think back to those thank you emails.

“I have people inside organisations such as GPs, the BBC, the police and so on who say to keep going because they can’t say what I am and that really impacts on you.”

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However, Katie does admit she sometimes has regrets, namely being fired from radio station LBC.

She was sacked shortly after posting a Tweet that said a "final solution" was needed following the Manchester terror attack that killed 22 people.

It was criticised for appearing to call for genocide, her use of "final solution" presumably referring to the Nazi genocide of millions of Jews in the Second World War.

Reflecting over some of her more controversial comments, Katie said: “Part of me thinks would I have said things differently? I horribly regret losing my radio show. I miss speaking to people in my kitchen on the phone. I can’t go back because of the Tweet I wrote. When people are out to get rid of you don’t give them an excuse which is what I did. I regret that.”

Katie still writes a column for the Mail Online and is also in demand internationally from Switzerland to America.

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Katie Hopkins originally starred on the ITV show I'm a Celebrity Get me out of Here back in 2007 (Image: ITV)

She said: “Working in the UK is a tough gig in the sense that I think the UK has lost its freedom of speech. There is so much you can’t say because there’s so much policing. You can only perceive that people have been offended to report an offence. That’s the level of policing of speech, but in America that’s not the case.

“Being in America is like getting into a warm bath. It’s easy for me because everyone loves me. Most people in Alabama have offered me a home! But the response I get back home is like being in a bath of acid on a daily basis and it will only be a matter of time when they get me on something.

“I know people say I say things just to be annoying or controversial, but I couldn’t have kept doing that for 15 years. The pressure I take from the police, legally, social services and everyone else who tries to shut me down, you would not endure that if it was just for frippery. My level of strength you need to do that means you have to believe it and have some kind of cause.”

Katie often spends five days a week in London which she says also helps protect her family from her work.

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She says her children are largely protected from what she does because of where she lives and they don’t have their own mobile phones or iPads - which she disagrees with.

She said: “The truth is your kids know you best of all. No matter what they hear I guess they know their mum. It’s a bit like when I read stuff about me like I was arrested on a boat in Egypt. I know I wasn’t.

“Their mates seem to think I’m quite cool which is odd!”

The release of Katie’s book contains accounts which she says are more funny than aimed at in any way trying to be cool.

“My editor told me I have mentioned the word vagina 246 times,” she laughed. “There’s lots about my sexual past. I’ve not identified them by name but they will know who they are, but maybe they will never read it?

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Halloween 2017

“There’s one about a man with a micro penis, and there’s the time I pulled out my coil instead of my tampon and other stuff that’s supposed to be funny. I’m quite scared as it’s just too many details but there’s a morale to every story.

“My sexual history is not that great to be honest. I just wrote it to myself and now I’ve realised it’s an actual book and I’m absolutely terrified.

“There’s also a funny chapter about people I’ve met such as Gemma Collins when she told me she just finished ‘being eaten up’. I did ask if she minded if I put it in the book.

“I want people to laugh and maybe cry a bit and at the end think about themselves, sod it, I’m all right as I am.

“There are real chapters like my epilepsy chapter which took me to some very tough places, not in a suicidal way but in a rational sense that to keep on living made no sense because I had got to the point when I was sometimes dislocating my arms twice a week.

“My girlfriends cried when I shared that chapter with them and said, ‘ why didn’t you tell me what you were going through?’.”

Katie had open brain surgery last year in an effort to cure her epilepsy which gave her four fits a night and seizures powerful enough to throw her shoulders from their sockets 43 times in 12 months.

The last chapter is entitled Last Words and Katie says it is aimed at empowering women to realise how strong and successful they are in whatever they do in life.

Katie said: “Women are so self-critical and are so easily put down by people. My book is about saying you’re good and by me confessing up and showing I’ve done worse than you, the idea is it will leave women feeling good about themselves.”

When it comes to naming women she admires, Katie has a vast number to choose from within the wide circles she associates with but it is a childminder mum and her home help she singles out for what they juggle and achieve within their everyday lives.

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The future will no doubt involve plenty more of that for Katie herself, and she is realistic about how long she can continue doing what she does.

“What matters to me in life is what is true for all mothers - health,” she said. “A year ago I nearly died but I’ve got a new chance in life. I don’t have fits or epilepsy anymore. I have a whole new life. It’s a completely different life to the one I didn’t think was worth carrying on with. That will never leave me. For your family to be healthy and happy, those are the two things. Everything else is peripheral.

“Then what’s important to me is standing up for people who don’t have a voice. That still matters to me until the point I’m shut down or the financial cost to my family to defend.”